Not Soon Parted

“Though thou shouldest bray a fool
in a mortar among wheat with a pestle,
yet will not his foolishness depart from him” (Prov 27:22).

We have a saying that you have probably heard before: “A fool and his money are soon parted.” In other words, unwise people make unwise choices with their money and quickly waste it. In this proverb we find that a fool and his foolishness are not soon parted.
The first part of the proverb talks about “braying” a fool. That is not a word I think I’ve ever used before, but it means to crush something or to grind it into a fine powder. In Bible times, people didn’t go to the store and grab a five-pound bag of flour off the shelf; they produced flour “from scratch.” They grew the wheat, harvested it, threshed it (removed the chaff), and then pounded it in a mortar with a pestle until it was crushed. Then they sifted it and crushed the larger parts again until it was uniformly fine. The picture of beating those kernels of wheat with a pestle into a fine flour in a mortar is used to describe just how ingrained foolishness is for a fool.
The writer says you could pound a fool and grind him into powder, but he would still cling to his folly. Foolishness simply flows from him. It is not a matter of just breaking a few bad habits, putting on some clean clothes, or trying to be a little nicer. It is part of his nature.
We have said many times that foolishness in the Bible is not stupidity, but ungodliness. An ungodly person cannot simply “clean up” his act and stop being ungodly. It is engrained in him. The only way for an ungodly person to become godly is through the work of God’s Holy Spirit. You may try to be a “good kid,” but unless you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, you are wasting your time. You cannot separate a fool from his foolishness.